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League of Legends -- Too Addicting for One's Good for All the Right Reasons

You know those days when there's something that has gotten you hooked so
bad, that it becomes such a grand time killer? You are fully conscious
that you could be doing something more productive, yet you can't help
but feel that you are being drawn to it that you simply can't resist it.
This latest game I have been wasting hours upon hours on has done
exactly that. And as much as I can acknowledge that there is clearly
many other stuff, such as spending more time on school work, I find
myself coming back for more.

And what is the source of such madness, you might ask? A free-to-play game called League of Legends.

What exactly is this game about? Simply explained, it's a PVP mix up of StarCraft and World of
Warcraft. You get to choose a warrior from ever-expanding roster of
characters, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and unique
ability sets. You then select between a 3-player or 5-player team match,
and you are placed in a map that is designed for the separate team
sizes. Each team has a Nexus or command center, inhibitors (which I will
explain further as to their purposes), a shop and healing platform, and
defense turrets that are placed along the paths leading to each team's
bases.

The main purpose of each match is to destroy the enemy's Nexus while
defending their own. This is done by destroying the outer turrets until
you reached behind the enemy fortress and attack inhibitors. When the
turrets guarding the nexus and least one inhibitor are destroyed, the
Nexus is vulnerable to attack. Throughout the game, the nexus of both
teams will automatically spawn minions in small attack squadrons that
march along a path and automatically target the nearest enemy, destroy
it, and proceed until they are killed off by champions (player
characters), turrets, or enemy minions. By destroying enemy inhibitors,
your own nexus will spawn much stronger and durable minions for that
specific pathway.

Meanwhile, as champions, you and your team go out to support your
minions, all the while kill any enemy champions that cross your path.
All players start at the initial level (Level 1), and become stronger as
they gain levels by slaying enemy minions, champions, and neutral
monsters that spawn in set positions around the map. The level cap for
every player ends at Level 18. Each minion, champion, and monster kill
awards you experience to level up in addition to gold, which you can
spend for weapons, gear, and items to boost your damage output, defense,
etc. Also, killing certain monsters grant temporary buffs like slowing
an enemy down when attacking to mana generation to increased damage
output.

As mentioned before, the game offers a wide variety of characters to
choose from, although not all characters are immediately accessible when
you start. The developers weekly rotate characters that are free to
use, while you can unlock any character with IP that you earn through
participating in battles, or RP which you can purchase with real
currency from cards offered to various video game or convenient stores.
Each character has their own pros and cons, although (ideally), none of
the characters are significantly stronger than the others - although
some characters are more challenging to master or some than others. All
the characters can be characterized by their assigned class such as
mage, fighter, ranged, support, and tanks. Choosing which character to
play in your team plays a crucial role in your team's success, since a
balanced team can often turn the tides to a battles where a team mainly
composed of mages may find a major disadvantage, especially if the
opposing team can counter the damage done to spells and finish them
quickly due to mage's weak HP build-up.

Akali, a fighter ninja character, is only one of the current 56 characters you can choose from in League of Legends.

Adding even more strategy to the mix is the use of runes and masteries.
As you gain player level's, which are different from the character
levels you gain inside a match, you receive a single mastery point for
each level (the player level cap being 30), in which you can spend on
talent trees, like the ones shown in the first example below, which can
help build your characters' offensive, defensive, or general skills -
according to your liking. The rune book, as seen in the second image,
works the same way, in which you are given a rune slot for each player
level achieved. Unlike masteries, runes have to be purchased with IP
gained from participating in matches. The cost of IP per rune varies on
each rune and what the rune adds to your stats, and the runes are
separated by four categories: glyphs, marks, seals, and quintessentials.

That pretty much sums up the premise behind League of Legends. While
getting used to the game's character building systems can be daunting at
first, building a great setup is easy once you establish you play style
and get familiar with the characters. And the gameplay inside a match
can really get exciting to the point where you'll whoop at the top of
your lungs when you know victory is nigh, or cursing profoundly when
losing.

However, there are some cons about the game. Since the gameplay is
PVP-oriented, all the gameplay is done online - although you can enter
practice matches with bots to sharpen your skills if needed. The
match-making system the game uses does a good job trying to match up
players with the same player level, like any online game, sometimes
you'll find yourself in annoyingly one-sided matches. And like any other
online game in the market, you should expect to at times find
yourselves in the company of the scum and villainy of the internet. The
servers also seem to be subject to constant maintenance and at times,
servers can get so crowded that servers will not allow you to enter, in
periods as longs as hours, even.

But overall, if there is a bottom line, the game is a blast to play, and
if you are a fan of WoW style of PVP and have a group of friends that
are fans as well, I recommend giving the game a try. Not to mention, it
is free to play, and you don't need to enter credit card information unless you decide to purchase RP points directly from the store.